The 3 Golden Rules of Social Media Customer Service

Submitted 1/30/2013 by Kaloyan Georgiev

In the world of internet and social media networks, taking an angry customer aside and working things out can be quite difficult. Yes, there are personal messages and stuff, but when a customer is angry, he wants all your fans to know about it. So, when everything is far more public and fast, the businesses get scared away. Thankfully, there are some rules that can make your part in the social media customer service a little easier.

Do not argue with a customer online – there are two things that can happen when arguing with a client and none of them is good for you. If you lose – you lose, if you win – you lose customer. Online, however, if you win – you loose the customer you were arguing with AND almost every other customer who lays eyes on the argument. Because, you know, it’s all public. So, when an angry customer starts writing angry stuff on your wall/social network etc. keep calm, take a deep breath and do whatever it takes, but don’t argue with them. Try to react calm and figure out a way to help the customer, but don’t, and there is no way I can stress this out more, don’t argue with him.

Answer quickly – again, when things are public it takes amazing small amount of time for a small problem to become a mass outrage. In social media world, the negative comments acquire followers a lot faster than positive ones, and the magnitude of the situation escalates proportionally with the length of your response time. So be quick, find a effective way to monitor comments and messages, and respond as quickly as possible.

Minimize the complaints – isn’t this the thing we all strive to do? But here I am talking about social media complaints. The perfect scenario when you have an angry customer is: he has a problem, he gets angry, he contacts you via email and NOT on, say, Facebook. How to do this? Make sure there is an easy way for every client of yours to contact you directly – put contact forms everywhere possible. Even a “For complains – please contact us at complains@....com” gets the job done most of the times. Make sure that the sugar goes out in the public places, though J